Sunlight
by thingstogoandplacestodo
Summary: "I didn't fall in love. I fell through it: Came out the other side moments later, hands full of matter, waking up from the dream of a bullet tearing through the middle of my body." -Love Letter by Sarah Manguso


She is sunshine, and you are suffocating without her. You've always been afraid of enclosed spaces, of cupboards and caves and closets, but you never imagined that an open street or summer garden could feel as small as the narrowest halls in Hogwarts.

You've been gone for years, grown up and found your passion in life, a prestigious job at the ministry, married with two kids. Still you wake up trembling in the middle of the night as you remember the curses, the torture and pain and trying to shield the little ones (an impossible task) with her there all along, beside you, shedding light and hope until she too was gone and all that was left was a world gone crazy (and isn't that ironic? She was always the crazy one, wasn't she). You haven't been _crucio_ ed in years, but you can still vividly recall every lightning lash etched into your bones. You look at your children and see skeletons holding trembling wands against each other's throats, on bad days.

On good days, you remember her. You walk into your sunflower kitchen, pick up your pretty rainbow knives and chop up celery. Admire the light through the pale green lines, veins of white sketched in pastel so fine it looks like it could almost breathe. You can see her, almost, hovering in the light above the white sink. If she were dead, it would be her ghost. Breathe. You reach out to touch her, whisper something that might be a name if anyone were around to hear, and she dissolves into dust in your fingers. The dust glitters, gold and white, and you think that this is more _her_ than any corporeal body could ever be— and then gentle hands (too heavy, too big) on your shoulders startle you, and you turn around and kiss your husband (and behind you your imagined love dissolves into sea monsters with knives for whiskers, only they're imagined too, aren't they, there was never anything there to begin with).

It was just a phase. Oh, sure, you thought you were in love, but doesn't everyone? Honey. Oh, honey. You were young and she was ageless and her honey soul drew your bee-venom heart in even as you thought, _this can't last_. But you fought side by side and you screamed under the Carrows' wands for hours rather than hurt her yourself. You were an invincible pair, crazy and bitchy, kind and loving, the cuckoo and the slut. In the end, it was nothing. In the end, she vanished from the train and the sun vanished with her. Even when she came back, nothing was the same. She smiled, spoke, sang. Her heart was bruised but open; she was still herself. It was you who was different.

Your soul died when she was gone, somehow. Your eyes dulled. The tunnel to your brain filled with dirt, worms and roses growing up up up… but the result was the same: you couldn't see her anymore. There is nothing left of you now.

No, that's not true. You have built yourself up. You are Cho, you are a mother and a wife and a writer, and if you repeat it enough times maybe it will start to become true. You can see yourself changing, becoming kinder and brighter and larger every time you close your eyes, but the you that was is dead now. The you that was died with her.

She didn't die, not really, and sometimes in your more lucid moments you think it's unfair that she was the one kidnapped, yet you were the one who died. You only went through what every student did. She had real struggles, real reasons to wake up with nightmares, and yet she continues to float through life serenely, wearing strange earrings and looking far too closely at everything people wish she wouldn't. At least, you assume so. You haven't spoken to her in years.

You wonder idly if you should pick up a quill and write her. You were an idle teenage fling, but there was something more, some connection- she said the words. Iloveyou. Every teenager says them, every half-witted boy and every confused girl, but from her it was real. It was like all the weirdness had faded away and she could see the truth of a universe that you could barely glimpse out of the corner of your eye: I love you. It was real, then.

Now, you look back, and laugh. You couldn't possibly look back and think that was anything but two silly teenagers because then you would have to admit it was love, then you would look at what you have now and it would pale in comparison, then you would dissolve. You can't bear the thought that two teenagers were more alive than you.

You go through the motions. They ground you, and they are grounded themselves, in a real fierce love for your children, in a gratitude to your husband for his patience and kindness. You braid hair and bake bread and live the life you always dreamed of. Still, you are stifled. Still, your sun is gone.

Sometimes, you wake up and turn to bury your face in golden hair and it's not there and your face hits a wall made of ribs and muscle. Sometimes, you think you hear someone singing, but it's just the ringing of your aging ears. Sometimes, you wake up in the middle of the night screaming and she is not there but your husband hugs you, whispers almost-right words, and you fall back asleep and in the morning you can't remember. Did it even really happen if you can't remember?

Your children are beautiful. Your new life reassures you and stifles you until you can't stop screaming and you feel that you are being buried with the sun in the ground, only that can't be possible because the sun isn't buried, the sun is alive and breathing and happy with her beautiful husband and adorable sons and why can't you be the same? Why can't you get over a childish crush? She did. She loved more than you ever could and somehow she was the one who moved on and you are the one with ghosts embedded in her skeleton.

You don't see her anymore. You don't know if you wish that you did. One day you do, one day you don't— that's how things go. One day you smile, one day you frown. One day you love your children, one day you can't look at them. It's how things go. You're good at brushing their hair and sending them off to school without looking. One day they'll be at Hogwarts. You'll be alone. You long for it. You dread it. You try not to think about it.

One day, maybe, you'll be okay. You're on your way there: you wake up every morning and get out of bed. Brush your straight black hair, pull on your pastel pink sweater. Get the kids up and smile at your husband and kiss him out the door. Build a house of kindness and "love" (imagine! Almost love— it could've been love— but you can't think of that anymore, it's dead and gone). Break your fingernails on bricks of braided hair and goodnight songs and "goodbye honey"s. You will die in the building of this house, you think. Maybe that's true. The sun is gone from your life and your gold-lit blood has dimmed, but you pour it into the foundation anyways. She is gone. You can't bring her back; all you can do is sacrifice yourself in the building of this house, and hope that the you who lives after won't remember her.

She was a dream, sunlight, gold.

Her absences makes every move a nightmare.


End file.
